Posted on 01/09/2023 6:33:12 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
The brutal, unrelenting cold that lasted for several days over the Christmas holiday froze off a sizable portion of Appalachia’s ample gas production, cutting off supply to power plants when they needed it most.
Gas transmission pipelines said the gas they were promised simply didn’t show up.
On the electric grid that connects Pennsylvania to 12 other states, at one point almost 25% of the capacity on the system either didn’t start up or broke while operating, leaving coal and petroleum-fired units to pick up the slack.
PJM, a Valley Forge-based grid operator, is still analyzing what happened during the storm. After an appeal to customers to conserve energy on Christmas Eve, the organization was able to avoid the rolling blackouts that utilities were forced to employ elsewhere in the country.
In Pittsburgh, Jay Apt, professor emeritus at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business and Department of Engineering & Public Policy, watched as the temperature on his home weather station plunged 40 degrees in an hour and a half.
While the weather was extreme, Mr. Apt said, it was “not a black swan event.”
Two years ago, as a winter storm was devastating Texas with blackouts that lasted for days in some areas, Mr. Apt wrote a provocatively titled op-ed in the Washington Post warning, “What is happening in Texas will keep happening until we take action.”
His research into electric grids — the U.S. has seven regional transmission organizations, with PJM being the largest — shows that very hot and very cold weather tends to make things break, and that when they fail they tend to fail together, compounding the strain on the grid.
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
Or maybe we shouldn't be phasing it out, period.
No one saw this coming. No one.
The people in charge know that solar and wind power can’t handle the load. Yet they continue rushing headlong into destruction.
I’m betting they will be warm and confortable in their homes and limosines while we shiver in the dark.
More solar mills and wind panels will help out a lot here. Hey gangreen climmunists——👎
Libtards never learn any lessons. They think that the only reason that their idiotic Marxist policies fail is because they aren't allowed to push them far enough.
Brutsl,cold? Sure it was cold, but it’s not like,we haven’t experienced it many many times before, for weeks on end sometimes. Living in cold parts of a action, one learns very early,on to adapt. Sounds like whoever is running things isn’t too bright perhaps?
It’s warm in New England. And, power bills are only up 50%.
The radical marxist left has been waging a war on carbon-based fuel for over 30 years. There are no quick solutions to improve the grid.
but they were preparing for Global Warming
In my opinion the Obama administration killed a large amount of coal fired production facilities, allowed insiders to buy coal sources after the market killed the prices, and now coal producers make big money for insiders but the coal fired capacity has been replaced with imaginary solar and wind capacity as well as freeze susceptible gas fired. Gas fired comes on very fast when needed and that works well in the summer, however water is needed to keep gas wells delivering in that fast manner and that doesn’t work well in winter for fast ramp up.
Except the WEF press is using natural gas as a scapegoat, when the real issue is the unpredictability and unreliability of the weather related renewables such as wind and solar.
Wind (or lack of) was the real cause of the previous Texas grid failure, and ERCOT irresponsibly and irrationally switched over 1/3 the generation over to it.
Nuclear is better than coal.
We must resume with smaller nuclear plants
What’s solar and wind doing?
There is no energy shortage but government interference in production and distribution. The USA has the largest supply of carbon based energy on earth.
while we shiver in the dark.
A few extra layers, perhaps a sweater and a winter coat, a pair of mittens, and several dogs and cats huddled on the couch. Now who doesn’t think that’s a great idea? Just be sure to light a few candles before putting on your mittens.
I’m sure it will be great indoors. Of course, you’ll starve except for cold cans of beans and tuna fish .
“No one saw this coming. No one.”
Isn’t it inevitable? Semper paratus and all that.
That’s right. Its the “perfect winter storm.” Not disastrous energy policies.
Thanks for the correction, that was my initial choice.
I should have trusted my self :).
Exactly right.
I was surprised that the newspaper did not call for a big tax increase to "solve" the problem (See Tagline.).
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